


Oops, right?

by booktick



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-21 06:18:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10679445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booktick/pseuds/booktick
Summary: "Really? Guess what, we're shitty people, Joel. It's been that way for a long time."





	Oops, right?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own none of this franchise.
> 
> A/N: Another fun, totally innocent "what if" fic. Nothing suspicious happening in this fic at all. Just good times for Tess.

* * *

 

The doors had shut and another set had opened. Tess had aimed the best she could. To attack out in the open would have meant immediate death. She couldn't hold them off by dying right away. She sure as hell wasn't going to let any of them pass her. They aren't going to catch up to those two in this world or the next, whatever that meant nowadays. 

A rush of soldiers had entered the room, some hid outside to find cover. The columns had been her personal use since there was much of nothing else to use. There was a ray of bullets that came her way, the same could have been said for them. All she had was a small handgun, a small way of the world telling her to go fuck herself. Yet one by one, as they closed in she'd fire and make a hit.

"You're dead!" One of them would shout.

And the irony washed through and through each time.  

Joel wouldn't have been much backup anyway. What would they have done? Hid behind the same columns, bumper to bumper. Hell, Ellie had only a knife--who gave her that Tess didn't want to know but guessed anyway. As for Joel and the kid as a team, they would have ended up same as the Fireflies that were growing colder as each bullet flew by if they had stuck to her hip. 

"Fuck you!" A soldier would shout as he fell.

" _Fuck you_!" Tess would shout back.

Honestly, it was the best last words they could ever hear. Better than what she said to Joel anyway, to Ellie even. She had a thousand things to say to them both and a thousand more after that. There wasn't enough time to say one. Not enough time for even half of one.

It was better her and Joel separated. Ellie would be a pain in his ass but Joel could take it. Joel was too stubborn to break a Tess promise and they both knew it. It'd be Tommy they'd get to after all this hell of a day, hell of a month. Tommy could do better than she ever could. Her and Joel were good partners though. The best Boston had ever seen and would ever have again. 

Their luck had to run out at some point, right? That's what happens with people like them, too stubborn and too much. It's when she's pressed against a column, gun firing with precision that her luck had gone past out. It went so far past running out that she could have sworn the world laughed at her trouble. Not that this was trouble, this was misery.

"You bitch-!" A pissed off voice personally assaults her ear.

It's her ribs pinch when a soldier slammed her against the column. The hunter's fingers fist her hair and slobber with blood hits her cheek. Tess fired blindly. With a sneer on face, she shoved the slumped body against her off. The body fell in a pool of blood at her feet. She lifted her head and witnessed the emotional defeat as well as devastation of the last one left. 

"Holy shit..." A trembling soldier stares at his fallen brother in arms.

_Holy shit._

She blasted the last one she saw before her gaze went to what was above the main floor. The above balcony looked empty from where she stood, cracked and crumbling but empty. There was no sign of Joel or the girl. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. Joel would take care to stay low, they knew the routine well enough. 

"Okay. Okay, Tess. Think." She whispered. 

Tess looked back at the open doors, no sign of soldiers there either. She panted as her steps hurried her through the doorway, her fingers on her gun. The cold of the metal was felt, the numbness had let up briefly. A sting of pain shot through her palms to her elbows and to her neck sooner after.

" _Damn it_." Tess hissed.

She blinked faster, the dust of the outside couldn't let her even have the moment. Tess removed a hand from the gun to wipe at her eyes. Her palm slid her wet, blood stained hair back. An attempt to be better prepared for her surroundings. A little too late for that she supposed, too late for a lot of things. 

Tess rolled her shoulders and breathed the best she could managed. Her head turned left to right, eyes roamed her surroundings. Her shoulder itched like hell, the fabric of her shirt didn't help. It wasn't supposed to go down like this. It should have never happened to begin with, she'd always been careful. 

"Joel..." Her head shook away the name again.

But the name came back.

She had bought them time. The kid would be safe with Joel. With one more pant, Tess swallowed and place the gun to her temple. She would not turn. She refused to let the world make it hers. It'd be quick, right? Like with the man from outside the wall. She cocked the gun.

"Kill my friends?!" Another voice brutalized her train of thought. 

Tess landed face first on the bottom of the Capitol's steps. Her mouth was full of grunts, blood dripped to the ground from her nose. She can barely gather herself, still dazed as she gets to her feet. Her hands bruised from the impact of the landing. A hand grabs her by her hair and it's her gun that's pointed under her jaw. _Fuck that._

Her elbow jerks, getting the attacker in the gut. Once he's bent over, her knee greets his nose. The gun fell to the ground with a hushed rattle. Tess picked it up and fire. Another soldier falls into blood, whether it's hers or his--she doesn't know.

"Jesus..." her hand went to her stomach, eyes shut. 

Her breathing is rough. It came out as rattled, created the urge to cough. The tickle to do so lingered even when she cleared her throat. Her hand rubbed her neck, careful not to brush where the mark was. She tugged her collar roughly, tried to cover the mark more than it already was. It didn't matter, she _needed_...

She'd turn soon if she didn't. 

Tess did not want to be the snarling stink of death over some poor individual nor did she seek out a bullet to the head now. Her eyes went to her gun, fingers ran over the side of it for a moment. It wasn't easy, like she told Joel. None of this made it easy. Easy was the coward's way.

Her eyes opened and the body of her feet remained where it had been the last minute. Tess swallowed hard, that gnawing at her chest began to rise. She swallowed it too. This was no time to let herself be stupid. Joel would have lectured her on that, at another time, another place. 

"Come on, Tess..." she murmured. 

She lifted her head and looked around. There was the same gazebo from before and the same greenish water they had trucked through. There was no rumble of a jeep, or boot thuds. It was far too quiet, not even the wail of a runner could be heard. There was the blue sky, a body and Tess.

Her hand touched the stained fabric of her shirt, right under where the mark stayed. It took her another minute to realize the burn had faded a fraction or two. She took another shaky breath, licked her lips and grinded her teeth. Her frown deepened as thoughts started to warp for her. She pretended that the itch was still present, that it hadn't lessened since her fall. 

The mark was a word she used instead of bite. It was easier to say mark, that way death didn't seem as terrifying to her. Tess didn't know the words or the idea behind it really. Just that it made it easier to put one foot in front of the other, and that shit was important. Such as the moment she was in, a stand still with her mark. That was a bad position to be in and she knew it.

But she was not Ellie, there wasn't a golden opportunity in her hands from this mark. This wasn't a sign of a better tomorrow because she wouldn't last weeks like Ellie had, nonetheless hours. It was just optimism, stupid, stupid optimism. Tess tore her hand away from her shirt at that thought. Her fingers briefly curled into her palm as tight as she could managed. Her comments she had spat out to Joel had been said out of a familiar and similar sentiment. 

_"Really? Guess what, we're shitty people, Joel. It's been that way for a long time."_

The look on Joel's face had been much like what was the inside of her in that moment, in this moment and moments to come. Dazed and want, all wrapped into numb panic. Yet there she stood, just being infected. She needed to move, damn it. There wasn't time to be wasted, time was the most precious thing in the whole damn world. It hadn't been rations or knives or even Robert under her boot. Time fucked her over too many times before. 

Joel had told her though. Time and time again, their luck would run out. That's how they kept marching forward all these years. It was running on pure luck. They didn't get this far because the world sought pity for them and decided to give them handouts. It was like all the steam had left them in those last moments and they were faded out pictures of a unattainable future together, whether as business partners or...

At least Joel had been partially right about one thing. They were survivors. He was just wrong about the they. It wouldn't be  _them_ anymore. It'd be Joel and the cargo, right? That's what she had called the kid, like the ignorant fool she'd been. As for Joel and Tess, they were damaged goods a long time ago though. Long before the kid came along or Robert and even Marlene. She was surprised Marlene even asked them to take the kid to the Capitol. 

There wasn't a light here to seek out. Tess had already done a great job at blowing the light out herself. With everything she'd been through, this was where it got her. Infected and rethinking her life's choices as if it mattered. As if a cure would be pulled out of her ass or she'd be immune like Ellie or some madeup shit that. 

"Marlene can kiss my ass."

That one was for the green water to hear, if not Marlene herself or the dead Fireflies. 

Her knuckles ran under her nose as she wiped her mouth. Tess took a deeper breath, coughed twice before she walked. Her steps sloshed the water as she entered it again. If she rounded the side, she might catch up with Joel and the kid. There was bound to be more soldiers than the lot that showed up first. 

Her body dragged itself through the sludge and the green. She got up onto land again, colder and wetter. Her gun was slid back into its' holster before she grabbed onto a broken part of a wall. Her grunt heavy as her breaths as she pulled herself up and through. She crouched and hopped down onto the other side, over the damn thing finally. An ache spread throughout her, the blame was put on her mark and not her fear. 

"You can do this," she let her fingers brush the grass from how low she crouched "you got this, Tess."

There was a snap of wood and she froze. She looked down, a broken twig laid helplessly under her boot. A twig, of all things, had nearly stopped her heart. She sighed deeply as she lifted her head. What a way it would have been to go though. Death by twig. A branch off of life.

"Stop dicking around, Tess." She whispered, to herself. 

Good self pep talks always started with a harsh tone for Tess.

Tess glanced around for any indication of life. Not even birds were to be seen. Her steps were careful as she started to move along the building's side. Each step a reminder of her purpose in that moment. She just had to get to the other side of the building to help the two escape. 

Backup was the best she could do. She owed him just as much as he owed her. He did his part of the agreement, it was her turn. That's what she kept telling herself. It'd probably be there, if there was more of them. She could pop a few, help the two sneak past and get away. 

That'd be mere luck. She was fresh out of that. 


End file.
